Storing Food for the Winter

[infinitemayonnaise]

Who| Kousuke Nitou and you!
What| After the Arena, Nitou's coping mechanisms prove to be strange.
Where| All over the place, specific prompts for different locations inside.
When| A few days after the Arena.
Warnings/Notes| Talk of Arena death and violence, obscene quantities of mayonnaise.

[A - Around Town]
Between the starvation and taunting with Miracle Whip during his re-education session and the even worse starvation that had come from the Arena itself, Nitou was starting to develop some issues. Food had always been important to the guy, and mayonnaise the most important of all. He put it on everything. Everything. Having that taken away, combined with the general trauma that was the Arena. He'd accidentally killed Gary, he'd seen a bunch of other people die, he'd died after a chestburster popped out to say hello and then he and it were eaten by Chimera...To make that even worse, somehow, the Capitol media had gotten it into its head that he was in a relationship with Haruto, of all people. HARUTO. That was just disturbing. Nitou's favored coping method for dealing with upsetting things he couldn't actively work to fix had always been to move on to the next thing, the next great adventure, never to let on that he'd been hurt. But he couldn't really move on here in the Capitol, could he? Couldn't pack up his tent and wander off to a more hospitable environment.

He'd already taken to ensuring that he had a decent mayonnaise hoard stockpiled in the District Five apartments, but something about that Arena death kicked that need into overdrive. It was a relatively harmless, mindless activity, and making sure he had enough mayo provided him with a sort of security blanket. Problem was, in his desperation to do something after his death, this hoarding behavior kicked into overdrive, and Nitou needed more mayonnaise. There was only one thing to do--stockpile even more mayonnaise. But first, he had to get this mayo to stockpile from somewhere.

So there he is, out and about, gathering the mayonnaise in a whirlwind shopping trip. He has carts full of the stuff. Enough that it's not surprising he's lost his grip on one of them, and it's rolling wildly out of control and away. "Hey, you! Look out!" Those who don't get out of the way or stop the cart in time are likely to get mowed down by it--and "I got hit by a runaway cart of mayo" is an awful thing that no one wants to have to tell the paramedics.

[B - Common Areas]
And what is one to do with a mayo stash? Hide it. If he hides enough of it, then there's absolutely no way the Capitol will be able to find and take away all of it. Clearly, this is flawless logic.

"'Scuse me." And there's Nitou calmly reaching around the person standing next to that lamp to hide a bottle of mayonnaise in the light fixture. Or reaching under someone to shove a bottle underneath some couch cushions. Or climbing on a ladder armed with a roll of duct tape with the clear intent to tape a skinny squirt bottle of the stuff behind the curtain rods. Or uprooting a potted plant so he can hide some mayonnaise underneath. Or hollowing out a book to create a secret mayo-shaped compartment. He might even be found jimmying open the tank of a toilet in one of the bathrooms to hide a bottle in a ziploc baggie containing a mayonnaise bottle inside if he really starts running out of hiding spots. Of course, hiding things in front of people probably defeats the purpose, but he doesn't care at this point.

[C - D5 Apartments]
If there was a place in the Tribute Tower that could be said to be the epicenter of Project Mayonnaise, it was here, where Nitou actually lived. There had been small caches of mayonnaise scattered around the apartments here and there before, but this was different. There was Nitou being cheerfully eccentric, and then there was Nitou displaying terrible coping methods and overdoing it in some weird mayo-based cry for help.

If anyone would care to confront Nitou about this mayo-caching behavior, he's in his apartment, where he's in the process of shoving a ridiculous amount of mayonnaise, probably what he couldn't find hiding spots for in the rest of the Tower, under his bed--and there's a new "chair" in the corner. It's actually a bunch of jars of mayonnaise stacked together in the shape of a large armchair and covered up with a slipcloth, and it definitely looks just like a pile of mayonnaise pretending to be furniture.

Comments

D5

[burnedbrighter]

OK...enough was enough.

Azula had long since grown jaded to the concept of food hoarding. It had been confusing to her the first time she encountered it a year ago when she found someone had taped candy bars to the underside of the kitchen drawers, but by now she understood that starvation did funny things to people.

This however? Was Mayo based Madness.

Side stepping a jar that had been forgotten on the floor Azula hammered on Nitou's door with her knuckles and waited impatiently. She was wearing her usual business attire of a smart red suit with gold trim. A casual crimson for today.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou jumps a little at that knock, shoves the mayo he'd been working with under the bed, and goes to greet Azula at the door. He grins broadly when he realizes who it is, even if he has absolutely no idea what she might want with him. The grin's as good a cover as anything--no one will suspect anything if he just keeps on grinning as usual! It's a flawless plan. "You need something?"

[burnedbrighter]

She maintained a very unamused expression for precisely five seconds before melting into a sarcastic eye roll and smirk.

"Yes actually I was wondering if you might have any mayonnaise to spare. There seems to be a shortage plaguing the city. Lives are in danger."

Of all the condiments for him to be obsessed with she still didn't understand how this particular one held such a hold on him.

[infinitemayonnaise]

There's a brief flicker of guilt across Nitou's face. "Well, now, I'm all about saving lives--I got you covered." And Nitou produces a tiny jar of mayonnaise from one of his jacket pockets with a flourish.

[burnedbrighter]

Her eyes narrow and peer at the jar before taking it between her fingers and studying it closer.

"I didn't even know they made jars this small." She mumbled before pocketing it to show to Diana later. The girl had food issues of her own and perhaps this would amuse her.

"May I come in? Or is there any space to sit in that storage shed for condiments." She gestures over his shoulder trying to get a look at the state of his room.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Oh, yeah, sure!" Nitou steps aside to let her in. "There's the bed, and then there's the...uh...chair." The "chair" doesn't look like it would be at all comfortable to sit on, let alone support any actual weight for very long.

Aside from the fact that this is Mayonnaise Central, the room's surprisingly neat. There's a tent and an overstuffed backpack tossed in one corner, but not a whole lot else. Nitou's too used to traveling light and doing his wandering hobo thing to acquire much in the way of stuff.

[burnedbrighter]

She opted for the bed not wanting to test the chair and risk humiliation and possible injury. Delicately setting herself on the edge of it she turned her appraising gaze from the room back to him to gauge his own mood.

"Now. I'm going to start by letting you know I understand how much you love Mayonnaise. It is perfectly reasonable that you enjoy it enough to keep a few extra jars around. But this...is excessive." She gestured around the room.

"So why are you doing this." Cutting to the point as quickly as she felt she could while still being polite.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Now, if Nitou were a little more self-aware, he might have been able to give a very intelligent answer involving feeling a lack of control and security and all sorts of things that were intimately tied into the Arena and his current Tribute status. Instead, there's an expressive shrug and a little bit of awkward rubbing of the back of his neck. "Hey, I'm just trying to be prepared. Y'know, in case of an emergency or something." As though a mayo-related emergency were going to happen at any second.

[burnedbrighter]

There is a long pause as she tries to digest this excuse and fails. It drifts off into the either and she dismisses it with a flick of her wrist.

"I can honestly not conceive of an emergency that would require you to have enough mayonnaise to fill this suite. And I like to think I have an above average imagination."

When you were paranoid most of the time you had a tendency to go through many "Worst case scenarios".

"What else have you been doing since you returned to life?" She presses making a move on trying to figure out what brought all this on.

A

[a_minute_younger]

'I got hit by a runaway cart of mayo' is not something Gary plans on admitting to anyone, but in spite of his better judgement, it nearly happens anyways. He's walking out of an adjacent grocery store with an armful of frozen pizza rolls when the cart intercepts. Yes, Gary is initially alarmed--but his hands are full and a place to put all of his stuff seems awfully convenient.

Casually, Gary hops onto the side of the shopping cart as it passes, drops his food on top of the piles of mayo jars, grabs the basket and lets it take him down the sidewalk. This is completely normal.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou's running after his runaway cart with the two he can control, and he's about to yell out a warning when whoever that cart's almost hit decides to tag along for the ride.

...and it's Gary. The guy he accidentally killed while trying to help. Nitou's stomach sinks. That's been one of the hardest Arena-related things to deal with, knowing he killed his friend. He's got no idea if Gary's mad at him, and he's not sure if he should try to pretend like nothing's happened, as is his usual way in these situations. "Hey! Gary! Good job catching my cart!" Like he really needs to identify it as his.

[a_minute_younger]

Given Gary's usual level of obliviousness, pretending like nothing has happened is a valid tactic. So is identifying the cart.

"Your cart?" He looks down at the contents rattling and shaking underneath his bags of precious, delicious pizza rolls. Mayo. Nitou likes mayo! Yes, it's all coming together now. Gary grins and twists around to face him. "Aha, yeah, I guess it is! No problem!"

...Now it's just a matter of stopping it. The cart has a lot of momentum, particularly now that there's a large teenager hanging from its side. It rapidly picks up speed as they continue the path downhill. Pedestrians are going to become a problem if Gary doesn't fix this soon.

Well, there's a quick solution, so that's naturally the one that he takes. Gary leans sharply, steering the cart towards the outer edge of the path. It starts to spin out almost immediately--but runs into a bench before that happens. The cart upturns, Gary does a full flip over the bench and, in a spectacular show of grace, executes a perfect roll into a crouch on the other side. The trolly is not so fortunate; its contents spill onto and over the bench and make a huge mess. This does not become a concern of Gary's until almost thirty seconds of gormless beaming at his accomplishments later.

"...Ah. Shit."

[infinitemayonnaise]

If Nitou hadn't already killed Gary in the Arena, he just might have been a little more upset about the mayo crash. As it is, there's still a very loud knee-jerk groan when that cart spins out and flips. All that mayo, gone, just like that...

If anything, the overturned cart jostles Nitou out of the little gloomy "I should apologize" funk he'd been threatening to stew in. It doesn't seem like Gary's any different, after all. "Dude, you okay?"

[a_minute_younger]

Gary's concerns lie elsewhere, yes. "Yeah, I'm fine!" he insists, though his brow his furrowed and his hands are agitatedly kneading the air. "But...fuck. Look at this!"

At first it seems as if he might be as distraught at the loss of mayo as Nitou is. Gary clarifies this a moment later. "My pizza rolls! Augh, it took me so long to find a place that sells those!"

[infinitemayonnaise]

"They're still edible!" Nitou protests. "It's probably really good with mayo!" Because putting mayo on your pizza rolls is absolutely nothing when you're Kousuke Nitou. "Or I could go grab you some more; I probably haven't cleaned that place out of mayonnaise yet."

[a_minute_younger]

"Microwaved mayo?" Who microwaves mayo? This is so distressing. Gary sighs forlornly. "I guess there's nothing else to it, huh? Alright, let's go."

And just like that, the issue is dropped. Gary hops over the mayo-covered bench (which he abandons, cart and pizza rolls and all) and trots up the hill to where Nitou is waiting.

"I'll cover your mayo, man. Don't worry about it!"

[infinitemayonnaise]

"What, you have to microwave those things?" Nitou has never had a pizza roll before; this is news to him.

And then there's the matter of paying for the crashed mayo. Anyone else, Nitou might have been insistent on that point with. But for Gary, Nitou just brushes it off. He'd killed the guy, after all. "Nah, man, it's cool, I still have another cart!" At least it had been purchased with the credit card the Capitol had given him anyway.

Common Areas

[wizardplease]

All Haruto had wanted to do today was get a little drunk on the Capitol's dime. He did not want to think any particularly deep thoughts, nor did he want to do anything too challenging, complicated, or frustrating. But try as he might, he could not ignore that Kousuke Nitou was attempting to tape something beneath his chair.

"...Nitou. What are you doing." That's not a question. Few things are a question when talking to Nitou. This is Haruto being exasperated, as he holds onto his beer and attempts not to spill any while his fellow wizard is being foolish.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Preparing for mayonnaise emergencies." He gives Haruto the simplest possible answer out of respect for his rival. "Now, either get off the chair or quit squirming around; you're making it harder to stash it!"

This all makes perfect sense. Just what is the problem here?

[wizardplease]

"Mayonnaise emergencies." These two words should not go together, and yet, they make a certain sort of sense. The fact that they make sense is a sign that he's been spending too much time around the guy. He takes a long swig of his beer, shifts in his seat, and pointedly does not move.

"Why this chair? Why not that one over there?" And he points vaguely to the other chair at the table. Yes, just go over there. There's no point in trying to stop the flood. Redirecting it is about all he feels up to.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Because I got that one over there on the first pass." Nitou says this like it makes perfect sense. "This is the third round." And if Haruto wanted an idea as to how long Nitou had been at this, there it is.

[wizardplease]

"The third... the third round?!" Okay, that is too much. He sits up sharply and leans in, jabbing a finger forward at Nitou. "You don't need a third pass! That's enough, Mayo!" If someone else isn't going to stop this, he has it. It's his job. He needs to protect everyone here from the mayo madman, and protect the guy from himself.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"But I gotta be prepared!" Nitou insists. "There could be a shortage or something!" Shortages caused by one idiot hoarding all the Capitol's mayonnaise, maybe.

[wizardplease]

Haruto is on the same page, here. He reaches out to try and grab Nitou by the shoulder to keep him from getting away. Or hiding more mayo. "The only shortage is going to be because you hid all the mayo in the Capitol."

[infinitemayonnaise]

"But I'll be ready for it!" Nitou insists. This seems to make perfect sense with the sort of logic he's running with.